


The Lad Ance Far Awa'

by JohnAmendAll



Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-02
Updated: 2013-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-23 10:39:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/621202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JohnAmendAll/pseuds/JohnAmendAll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jamie's back in the TARDIS, and Jo's feeling just a trifle neglected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The change in the Doctor was obvious to Jo. On their previous occasional trips in the TARDIS, he'd tried to look confident, but there had been a hesitancy about the way his hands moved over the controls, an occasional twitch as something reacted unexpectedly. This time was different. He'd entered the coordinates and set the machine in motion with less fuss than it took to light the gas stove in Jo's flat, and as he brought them in for the final approach he was manipulating the controls with the skill of a virtuoso. 

Jo's only slight concerns were the smell of burning and the wisps of black smoke rising from a crack in the console, but she reminded herself that if the Doctor wasn't bothering about them, neither should she. 

The hum of the engines rose to the roar of materialisation. The glowing column at the centre of the console rose, fell, and stopped. 

"And there we are." The Doctor smiled, revelling in his regained piloting skills. "Within fifty yards and five minutes." 

He patted the console fondly, then turned the scanner on. Jo turned to look, and gasped. The image on the screen was of bleak moorland, scattered with bodies, more than she could count. A few were wearing red uniforms, but most were in a variety of tartans. Here and there, parties of red-coated soldiers were stripping the bodies or digging pits; elsewhere, ravens were pecking at the corpses. 

"Where are we?" Jo gasped. 

"Culloden Moor." From the Doctor's tone of voice, it was clear that he was no happier with the view than Jo. "April the eighteenth, 1746. Two days ago, there was a battle here. And today, the order goes out that any survivors should be killed. Now, come with me." 

*

Her flimsy blouse and short skirt were completely unsuitable for a cold, rainy April day in Scotland, but the icy feeling that gripped Jo's heart wasn't just down to the weather. There was death all around her, heaped up on the ground, and as a miasma in the very air. And if one of the parties of soldiers got their hands on her, she could guess that she might not end up dead — but she'd be wishing that she was. 

She glanced back at the TARDIS, which seemed a long way away, and then hurried after the Doctor. He was picking his way delicately through the bodies, occasionally consulting a gadget of the sort he frequently constructed in the laboratory. 

"Here we are," he said, kneeling beside a fallen Highlander, scarcely more than a boy. He set his device down, placed one hand on the lad's forehead, and took his wrist in the other. "Would you mind keeping an eye out, Jo?" 

Jo remained standing, looking this way and that. She felt horribly conspicuous, the only person standing in a field of bodies. Surely one or another group of soldiers must have noticed her already? She looked this way and that, trying to turn slowly so as not to attract attention by sudden movements. At her feet, the Doctor was doing whatever it was he'd come to do, but she didn't dare look down to see what that was. 

"You there!" 

She spun round. The shout had come from one of the closer groups of soldiers. 

"Doctor," she said urgently. 

"Yes, Jo, I heard that. How close are they?" 

Jo tried to estimate. "Two hundred yards. Three hundred? I don't know. But they're coming this way!" 

"Give me a hand, then." 

It took Jo a moment to nerve herself to turn her back on the approaching soldiers. Once she'd done that, she hastily helped the Doctor to hoist the unconscious young Highlander he'd been attending to, onto his shoulders. 

"Now get back to the TARDIS," the Doctor said. 

"But what about..." 

"I'll be fine, Jo. Go!" 

Jo made for the TARDIS; her progress, across uneven ground, trying not to trip over dead bodies, felt horribly slow. More voices were shouting, now from several directions. She risked a glance behind her, tripped over something, and fell headlong among the dead men. Hastily, she climbed to her feet, fighting against the lurid notion that the corpses were grabbing at her, and covered the rest of the distance making quite sure to look where she was going. 

Once she'd reached the TARDIS, Jo couldn't help turning and looking back at the Doctor. He was some way behind her, slowed by his burden, and the red-coated soldiers were gaining on him. One stopped and aimed a pistol; Jo saw the puff of smoke a little before she heard the shot. The Doctor didn't pause, stagger or even look round. She heard the redcoats calling to their fellows, and answering voices from further away. Ravens, disturbed from their feasting on the fallen, took to the air with gloomy cawing noises. 

As the Doctor approached, he waved hurriedly at Jo, indicating that she should open the TARDIS. Jo lost no time in pulling out her key and complying. The men were close enough that she could make out the bloodstains on their bayonets and the grim look on their faces. It reminded her of the UNIT troops of her time when they faced some monster from the unknown — except that this time, she and the Doctor were the monsters. 

"In there," the Doctor snapped, nodding at the door. Jo nodded, and dived through the narrow opening. The light and warmth of the console room embraced her. She dashed across to the console, took a firm grasp of the door lever, and looked back at the doorway. The Doctor seemed to be silhouetted in profile against the moorland beyond; he must have turned sideways to fit his burden through the narrow opening. The moment he was through the doors, he nodded at Jo, who pulled the door lever. As the massive inner doors swung closed, Jo was positive she could hear the crackle of musket fire, and the thud of bullets against the shell of the TARDIS. 

The Doctor strode over to the console, still with the unconscious Highlander slung over his shoulders, and manipulated the controls seemingly at random. Lights glowed, and the central column began to rise and fall. On the scanner, the image of the battlefield receded, dropping away into a glowing vortex of mist. 

"Right. Come along, Jo." The Doctor set off through the inner door of the TARDIS. Jo hurried along after him. 

A short walk brought them to a room fitted out as a medical bay. Half a dozen beds, no two alike, occupied one wall; another was occupied by a bench laden with bottles, sealed packages labelled in a variety of languages and part-dismantled equipment. Against the third wall stood a number of cabinets, again all differing from each other. Some were glass-fronted and contained hideous-looking surgical implements. One or two looked more like computers, with arrays of switches and lights. 

The Doctor, with Jo's help, arranged the unconscious lad on the nearest bed, retrieved a few materials from the workbench, and began to clean and bandage his wounds. Jo promptly took the opportunity to ask the question that had been uppermost in her mind since they'd been on the moor. 

"Doctor," she said. "Who is he? I mean, you went to an awful lot of trouble to find him. What's so special about him?" 

"You don't know it, but he's saved your life," the Doctor said, still attending to the young man on the bed. "And the lives of everyone else on Earth, not to mention mine. And as for who he is: You've heard me talk of Jamie?" 

Jo's eyes widened. "This is Jamie?" 

"That's right." 

Jo tried to remember what she knew of Jamie. The Doctor hadn't been at all forthcoming about his life before he'd arrived at UNIT; most of her information had come from Sergeant Benton. 

"Didn't the Time Lords send him home to live out his life?" she asked. 

"Exactly. In his case, by the look of things, a few days at most." 

"You mean they deliberately..." Jo tailed off. "I thought the Time Lords were good people." 

The Doctor took a long time to answer. "They can be," he said eventually. "But they do have rather rigid ideas. A place for everything, and everything in its place." He pulled a blanket over Jamie and rose to his feet. "Even if that place is a shallow grave." 

"That's horrible." 

"Yes, I suppose it is." The Doctor put his hand on Jo's shoulder. "Mind you, the alternatives are a whole lot worse. Fortunately it's only the Time Lords we have to deal with at the moment." 

"You mean they'll come after you?" 

"They did the last time. But I've made a number of improvements to the TARDIS since then. We should be able to—" 

Abruptly, accompanied by a snapping noise, the lights went out. Jo gave a little gasp of surprise. 

"Is that," Jo found her throat was dry and had to start again. "Is that them?" 

"Possibly." The Doctor squeezed her shoulder comfortingly. "But it's more likely to be a defective component in the power system. I'll go and see what's what. Could you stay here and look after Jamie?" 

"Of course." 

"If he wakes up, you'll have to explain where he is and what happened. Don't try and tell him everything in one go. The Time Lords erased his memory; maybe it'll start coming back now he's here, but whatever happens he'll be very confused." 

"And if I keep chattering he'll be even more confused. Got it." 

"Thank you, Jo," the Doctor said, and was gone. 

Left alone with Jamie in absolute darkness, Jo cautiously felt her way around the room. She was sure that there had been a chair somewhere, in among all the other stuff. This place had made the Doctor's laboratory at UNIT look tidy by comparison. 

Having eventually found the chair, she carried it back to beside the bed Jamie was in, using the sound of his steady breathing to orientate herself, set it down as silently as she could, and sat in it. It wasn't particularly comfortable, which perhaps was just as well; it wouldn't help if she dozed off. She folded her arms, and waited for something to happen. 

*

Jo woke with a gasp. Her limbs felt cold and stiff, the chair was digging into her in awkward places, and from the way her eyes felt it was obvious she'd been asleep for some time. The air, too, felt chilly. 

"Who's there?" a sleepy Highland-accented voice asked from the bed beside her. 

"Don't worry," Jo said, trying to keep things simple. "You're safe. I'm here." 

"Am I dead?" was the next question. 

"No, of course not." Jo leaned over in the direction of the bed, and managed, after several attempts, to put her hand on Jamie's arm. "You're alive and so am I. I'm Jo, by the way." 

"James McCrimmon. Jamie." The blankets moved, and Jo felt a hand close over hers. "Where is this place?" 

Jo took a deep breath. "We're in the TARDIS." 

"TARDIS? Oh, aye, that blue box the Doctor had. But that was just a wee thing... or was it? Somehow, I mind it being bigger." 

"Don't worry about that now." 

"So what happened? I was..." Jamie's voice sounded dazed. "I'd brought Polly and Ben and the Doctor back, and then— then I was running, and there were Redcoats everywhere, and something hit me. Lass," he added, in a firmer tone of voice, "they must have got me. There's no two ways about it — we're dead." 

"Don't be silly." 

"Well, why's it so dark, then?" 

Jo decided to keep things simple. No point in bringing up the possibility of the Time Lords. 

"There's something wrong with the lights," she said. "The Doctor's trying to sort them out." 

"The Doctor? What's he want to come back for? I had enough trouble getting him away in one piece the last time." 

"He came back to rescue you, silly. You'd have been killed otherwise." 

"Och, nonsense." 

"It isn't nonsense," Jo said firmly. "I saw what it was like out there. You couldn't — you were unconscious." 

"Then they'd have left me for dead, wouldn't they?" Jamie squeezed her hand. "Look, lass, I'm sure you mean well, but it can't have been as bad as you thought." 

"I don't think it's any good trying to talk sense to you—" Jo began, then broke off as the darkness gave way to flickering yellow light. She looked around; behind her, the Doctor was standing in the doorway, a hurricane lantern in one hand. 

"Ah, there you are," he said. "I'm afraid it'll take a bit longer to repair the systems than I'd hoped. How are you getting on, Jo?" 

"Well, he's awake," Jo said. "And he won't believe a word I tell him." 

"Hang on," Jamie interjected. "I never said that. And who are you?" This last was addressed to the Doctor. "You're not the Doctor, I can see that much." 

"He is, really." Jo turned back to Jamie. "The Doctor can sort of change from one person to another. Was your Doctor was a little man, with dark hair? I met him only the other day, when the Earth was under attack by these big orange blob monsters—" 

The Doctor cleared his throat. "Jo, I think you'd better go to bed. You've had a long day." 

"Oh. Sorry. You did tell me not to chatter, didn't you?" She rose to her feet. "Good night, Doctor. Good night, Jamie." 

She walked to the door, and glanced back. In the light of the oil lamp, now set on a side table, she could make out the Doctor, taking her place beside the patient. 

"James Robert McCrimmon," she heard him say. "Welcome back." 

Jo turned and groped her way back to her bedroom through pitch-dark corridors, with a vague feeling that she'd just been excluded from something important.


	2. Chapter 2

It was several days after they'd picked Jamie up. Though the lights were now working and the Doctor had assured Jo that they were in perfectly normal flight, she hadn't known a journey last this long before. Having been thrown on her own resources, she'd spent her days exploring the ship, wandering through endless corridors and vast, empty spaces. Now, having returned to the more familiar areas near the console room, she was taking a well-earned rest. 

Exactly how long the TARDIS had had a sitting room, Jo wasn't sure; on her previous trips, she'd never been on board long enough to feel the need of such a place. As with most of the rooms she'd seen, it looked as if it had been stocked by second-hand dealers from past, present and future, with no thought of an overall decorative scheme. There had been hints that at some point, somebody had tried to impose order on the chaos, but how long ago, and whose the tidying hand had been, Jo couldn't guess. 

Half-asleep in one of the more comfortable chairs, Jo tried to make sense of her feelings. Ever since Jamie had arrived on the TARDIS, she'd felt uncomfortable in ways she couldn't quite put her finger on. Objectively, it made sense that the Doctor should be spending most of his time with Jamie, checking the dressings on his wounds or using the ship's mental projector to reconstruct his memory — but she ended up feeling left out. Maybe even a little jealous. 

As for Jamie himself, he was a nice enough lad, but now he could remember all his previous adventures he seemed to be of the opinion that there was nothing else for him to learn, and that Jo was a young innocent who needed to be protected for her own good. Jo's accounts of her own adventures in time and space didn't help in the least; Jamie had simply remembered the bits where Jo had got out of her depth and needed to be rescued, and ignored, or deliberately forgotten, everything else. 

There was a distant thump, and the TARDIS shuddered, jerking her awake. Either they'd landed, or something had gone wrong. She jumped to her feet, took a couple of steps in the direction of the door and realised her skirt had somehow come undone while she was asleep and had now fallen off. She spun round. The skirt was lying on the floor by her chair, but before she could get to it Jamie, who certainly hadn't been there when she went to sleep, had made a dive, and secured it. 

"Give that back!" she shouted at him. 

"Come and get it," Jamie replied, with a grin. By way of encouragement, he waved the skirt over his head, in the manner of a flag. 

Jo made a lunge for her stolen garment. Jamie stepped nimbly to one side, laughing as Jo's momentum sent her sprawling over the arm of an easy chair. She was up again in a second, but he'd taken advantage of her confusion to secure his position on top of a cupboard, teasingly waving the skirt just out of her reach. As she scrambled after him, he jumped onto a nearby chair, then to a towering bookcase, sending the chair toppling. Jo snatched up a cushion and gave chase, adding to the chaos as she kicked a pouffe out of her way. 

Jamie was hanging onto the front of the bookcase, still waving the skirt at her. Jo paused briefly as an idea struck her, flung the cushion to one side, and made a grab, not for her skirt but for the short kilt Jamie was wearing. An expression of horror briefly passed over the young Highlander's face, but before he could do more than open his mouth, Jo had pulled with all her strength. 

The kilt came away in Jo's hands. She looked up, and screamed. So did Jamie. Trying to deal with the skirt still in his hand, preserve his modesty, and hang onto the bookcase, he ran out of hands, slipped, made a wild attempt to recover, and managed to tip the bookcase over. Jo threw herself to one side as books, shelves and half-naked Highlanders rained down. 

"Ah, there you are," the Doctor's voice said. "I thought you'd... Oh." 

Jo looked up, to see the Doctor at the door, an embarrassed expression on his face. 

"Oh," he repeated. "I think I'd better come back later." 

Jo felt her cheeks burning as she realised what conclusion he'd reached. 

"It isn't like that—" she began. But the Doctor had already made a hasty exit. 

Jamie tapped her on the shoulder. 

"Here's your skirt," he said. "Can I have my kilt back now?" 

Jo got to her feet, took the skirt and dropped the kilt as if it burned her. 

"Take it," she said. "I just hope you're sorry. I've never been so embarrassed in my life." She turned her back on Jamie and began to put her skirt back on. "What the Doctor must have thought of me..." 

"Of you? He couldnae see your— well, he couldnae see anything he oughtn't to." 

"That isn't what I meant!" 

"It's safe to look now," Jamie said. There as a click as he fastened his buckle. "What did you mean, then?" 

Jo turned to face him. "Isn't it obvious? He thinks we're carrying on!" 

"He—" From Jamie's expression, it was obvious that the idea hadn't crossed his mind. "Why would he think that?" 

"Perhaps because we were half-naked and lying on the floor together? What was he supposed to think?" 

"Oh." Realisation dawned, and a blush spread across Jamie's face. "Well, we'll have to explain things, then. Tell him it was just a wee bit of fun." 

"I'll tell him," Jo said firmly. "If you say anything like that it'll just make things worse. And we need to get this mess cleared up first." 

"Aye." Jamie heaved at the fallen bookcase, to no avail. "I think this'll need both of us." He took a deep breath. "Oh, and Jo?" 

"Yes?" 

"Sorry." 

Feeling suddenly awkward, Jo took hold of the other side of the bookcase. "All right," she mumbled. "Just don't do it again." 

*

"Ah, there you are," the Doctor said, as Jamie and Jo crept into the console room. "I was going to suggest, if you wanted to start sharing a bedroom—" 

"No!" his companions interrupted, in perfect unison. 

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "Well, if you're sure?" 

"It wasn't— We're not—" Jo stopped, and started again. "When you found us, it wasn't like you thought." 

Blushing once more, she explained the prank that Jamie had played on her, and what it had led to, with Jamie adding his own interjections in support of the story. 

"I see," the Doctor said, once the story had run to its conclusion. "Well, if you want to make sure Jamie doesn't play that trick on you again, I think you'll have to be careful not to go to sleep where he can find you. Or wear trousers all the time." 

"That's what Zoe ended up doing," Jamie said. 

"Anyway, let's put that behind us for now. What I was originally going to tell you is that we've landed." 

"Where?" Jamie asked, a split second before Jo could do likewise. 

The Doctor looked offended. "On Earth, of course. UNIT HQ." 

Jo pointed to the scanner screen, which was blank. "Shouldn't we be able to see something, then?" 

"Och, that thing never works properly," Jamie said. 

"Perhaps it needs a little fine tuning," the Doctor admitted. 

"Then how can you be so sure where we are?" 

With a flourish, the Doctor pulled the door lever. His expression of triumph vanished as the double doors swung open, revealing a street lined with half-timbered buildings, under a pale lilac sky. 

"Oh," he said. 

"Not UNIT headquarters, then?" Jamie asked, with a smirk. 

"Not even Earth," Jo said. "Is there something wrong with the TARDIS?" 

Jamie's smile widened. "There's always something wrong with the TARDIS." 

"That isn't what I meant." Jo looked up at the Doctor. "Are we lost?" 

The Doctor shrugged. "I must have knocked something out of alignment when I was making my repairs. Probably not too difficult to sort out." He pulled on his cape. "Anyway, while we're here, we might as well have a look round, mightn't we?" 

He swept out of the doors. Jamie pulled a wry face at Jo, and they both followed suit. Outside, the air was hot and humid, filled with the sounds and odours of a growing mediaeval town that hadn't felt the need of mains drainage. The inhabitants looked human, or as near as made no difference. Everybody they met seemed to be heading in the same direction: some pushing handcarts laden with produce, some carrying packages over their shoulders, others leading zebra-striped ponies with panniers on their backs. 

"So where do we start?" Jo asked. 

"Wherever those people are going," Jamie said. "I'd say they were going to sell that stuff at a market." 

"Top of the class, Jamie." The Doctor patted him on the shoulder. "Let's go." 

_I used to be top of the class once_ , Jo thought, picking her way along behind the Doctor and Jamie. _Now I'm just the third wheel._

By the time they reached the market, a maze of booths and tents huddled beneath the outer walls of a grim-looking castle, Jo wasn't feeling any more comfortable. To be fair to the Doctor and Jamie, they'd made several attempts to involve her in their conversation or to pique her interest by pointing out things they'd noticed. She'd tried to respond in kind, but it had only made her feel like a little girl who'd been allowed to sit up with the grown-ups, as long as she didn't make a nuisance of herself. 

"Does anyone mind if I take a look at those gloves?" she asked, pointing at a nearby stall more or less at random. 

"Are you sure you'll be all right on your own?" Jamie said. 

Jo bridled. "Of course I will." 

"Why not?" the Doctor said. "We can meet at that monument in an hour." 

He pointed to the centre of the market place. Where an English county town might have had a cross, the focal point here was something closer to an obelisk. Its sides were painted with faded outlines that reminded Jo of the Bayeux Tapestry. 

"See you then," she said, and plunged into the crowd. 

Exploring on her own, Jo found her spirits rising as she toured the stalls. Without any of the local currency, a buying spree was out of the question, and there was little enough she felt inclined to purchase in any event. But as she knew all too well, information was a valuable commodity in its own right. 

"Do you need a hand with that?" she asked, seeing a middle-aged man in the process of dismantling his stall. 

"Nay, I'll be fine, lass," he replied, expertly coiling a guyrope. "Been doing this since you were so high, I reckon." 

"Have you sold out already?" Jo looked around. Nearly all the stalls were still trading, with only one or two, like this one, packing up for the day. "You must have done very well." She looked at the painted sign, a crude picture of some kind of fruit. "Everybody seems to be stocking up on food today." 

"That they are, girl." He lowered his voice, so that Jo had to move closer to hear him. "They say Prince Kyrath's army is on the move at last. If it's a siege he's planning, they'll need all the food they can get." He turned back to his part-dismantled stall. "And if it is, the better for me that I return to my orchards before he comes." 

"Yes, I'm sure it is," Jo said, bade him farewell, and returned to her explorations. Whatever rumour this man had heard, it seemed to be in wide circulation, and within the next ten minutes she'd overheard it in half-a-dozen hushed variants. People seemed to be hurrying, with no time for gossip; she found herself swept this way and that by the tide of townspeople, until finally she nearly bumped into a redheaded young woman in a plain-looking homespun dress. After the necessary apologies had been exchanged, conversation seemed almost inevitable. 

"Everyone seems very jumpy today," Jo said. 

"And why shouldn't they be?" the girl answered. "With the Prince finally bestirring himself to send his men after Lord Rasmor. Who knows what they'll do to the folks in this town? Plunder, rape and pillage, like as not." 

"I'm sorry." Jo gave her a wide-eyed look. "I'm afraid I'm a stranger here. I don't really know an awful lot about politics and affairs of state." 

"Who does?" 

Jo decided on a nervous giggle. "Well, I'm sure you know more than I do." 

"Maybe I do." She tapped her nose. "You hear things in the castle... even if you're only a kitchen skivvy. 'Tis said Lord Rasmor's been getting too high and mighty for his own good, getting to think that it's his word that runs here, not the prince's. Word is that he's had visitors from the Eastern Marches, in secret as you might say." 

"And now the Prince has come to deal with him?" 

She nodded. "Most say he'll stay in his camp over the river. Been there a se'nnight or more already, and stays just where he is. And Lordship stays in his keep, and he don't do nothing neither. Like two cats in a barnyard." She shrugged. "And what's a poor serving wench to do, caught between them? Keep my head down, do my work, and hope none of they bold knights takes a fancy to me." 

"Gosh." Jo clasped her hand. "I do hope things work out for you. I'm Jo, by the way." 

"Sella," the woman replied, with a reluctant smile. 

"Thanks very much." Jo caught sight of her watch, and was shocked to find she was overdue for her rendezvous with the Doctor and Jamie. "Sorry, I've got to meet some friends. Bye. And good luck." 

She dived once more into the crowd. It thinned as she came closer to the monument; a number of men, dressed in chainmail and armed with pikes, were standing around its base. All had the same emblem on their surcoats: a white, five-petalled flower on a green background. Their attitude reminded Jo of nightclub bouncers, or perhaps the sort of man who'd say "Nice shop you've got here. Shame if anything should happen to it," and mean it. 

The Doctor ought to be here somewhere. Was that his mop of grey hair visible over the heads of the nearest guards? Jo decided that it was, and slipped through the townspeople in that direction. But as she came within earshot, it was plain that he and Jamie had already managed to get themselves into trouble. 

"No," Jamie was saying heatedly. "I'll not swear loyalty to your lord, whoever he calls himself." 

"Now, Jamie," the Doctor's voice said. "There's no need to..." 

"Doctor, I fought for Charles Stuart and his father James. I'll not bow the knee to yon Baron, or Margrave, or whatever he calls himself." 

By now, Jo had managed to get close enough to see the situation. Her two fellow travellers were already held by four of the pikemen; a fifth, who was holding something like a cutlass in one hand and Jamie's dagger in the other, was facing them. 

"Maybe what you say is true," he said. "Maybe you are just innocent travellers and you carry this weapon for your protection. Or maybe you're two more of Kyrath's spies. Unish!" He waved to another of his men. "Take them to the castle. They can cool their heels in the dungeon until his lordship's got time to deal with 'em. And if they are the Prince's men, why, we can slit their throats and hang their corpses from the battlements." 

Jo watched helplessly as the guards marched them away.


	3. Chapter 3

Jo waited until the guard's footsteps had faded away, then hurried to the cell door she'd scouted earlier, pulled out the keys she'd pilfered, tried them in the lock until one of them turned, and opened the door. There was no sign of Jamie, but the Doctor was sitting on a bench on the far side of the cell. His face lit up as he saw who had come to rescue him. 

"Jo!" he whispered, rising to his feet. 

"Come on!" Jo replied. "There isn't much time." 

The Doctor hurried across the cell. Jamie appeared from behind the door, where he'd obviously been waiting to ambush whoever entered. His eyes widened in surprise. 

"Jo! How did you get in here?" he asked. 

"I am trained in infiltration, you know." Jo gave them both a self-congratulatory smile. "There's a girl called Sella who works in the kitchens. I swapped clothes with her and took her place. And then I wangled it so I was the one who took the food to the dungeon guards, so I knew the way. And then—" 

Remembering that time was precious, she cut short her account, put her finger to her lips, and led the other two along the main corridor of the dungeons. The distant sounds of castle life could be heard, but no nearby footsteps that would warn her of the guard's presence. Close to the foot of the stairs leading up to ground level, she opened another cell and crept in, beckoning Jamie and the Doctor to follow her. Once inside, she closed the door and crouched down behind it so the cell still appeared empty; the others followed suit. 

"What's the idea?" Jamie whispered. 

"Wait till the guard's gone past," Jo replied, equally quietly. "Then we open the door and run up the stairs. And then.." 

"Aye?" 

"Then I'll think of something." 

The Doctor gave her an approving nod. "That's the spirit, Jo." 

They waited in silence for a few moments, until the guard's heavy footsteps had passed. Then Jo peeped out through the door, and beckoned the other two up a sharply-angled staircase. At the top, an arched doorway gave onto the castle courtyard, which was in a state of organised chaos. Most of the space was taken up with wagons, drawn by creatures that seemed to be the local equivalent of oxen, and laden with foodstuffs or barrels. These were being unloaded by hurrying groups of men, under the direction of green-clad guards. A couple of the carts, already empty, were waiting in the shadow of what must be the main gateway for their chance to leave, while another fully-laden wain was negotiating the gatehouse on its way in, its wooden axles screeching. 

From the relative safety of their doorway, the three time travellers considered their situation. 

"D'ye think we could stow away on one of those carts?" Jamie suggested. 

"I don't think so, Jamie." The Doctor rubbed his neck. "They're only leaving when they're empty: there wouldn't be anywhere to hide." 

"Maybe if I could get some more clothes like these, we could pretend to be kitchen maids and get out that way," Jo suggested. 

"I'm no' dressing as a lass again," Jamie said firmly. "Not after what happened last time." 

Jo stared at him. "Last time?" 

"I can't tell you it all now, it'd take too long." Jamie changed the subject with suspicious haste. "And where d'you think you'd find a dress to fit the Doctor, anyway?" 

"Yes, I'm afraid Jamie's right," the Doctor said. "Now, where does that gate lead?" 

He indicated a smaller gatehouse, at the opposite end of the courtyard from the main gate and its throng of people. 

"Down to the river, I think," Jo said. "You can't get back to the town that way, unless you go over the bridge and round." 

"It's better than being stuck in here," Jamie said. 

"But wouldn't we run straight into Prince what's-his-name and his army?" Jo considered the possibilities, and sighed. "All right. Hang on a moment." 

She darted across the courtyard, returning in a few moments. 

"It's got a drawbridge," she said. "I suppose it's worked from somewhere up in the tower." 

"Do you think you can manage to get it lowered?" the Doctor asked her. "After all, there's bound to be someone on guard." 

Jo essayed a careless shrug. "Don't worry. I'll get it open for you." 

"This isn't a job for a young lass like you," Jamie protested. 

"Listen, it's got to be me," Jo said. "The moment I get that drawbridge open, you two have got to be ready to go. And you can't do that while you're up in the tower with me, can you?" 

"And what happens to you then?" 

"I'll just go back into the kitchens and blend in with the other servants. See, it's all quite straightforward." She looked to the Doctor for confirmation, and saw him give a slight nod. "Now, we'd better get started before someone looks in your cell and finds you aren't there any more." 

"Quite right," the Doctor said. "Now, Jamie, you and I need to see what sort of horses they ride in these parts." 

Jo crossed the courtyard again, snatching a couple of pinkish fruit from one of the carts as she passed it. Quickly, she located the spiral staircase leading to the upper levels of the small gatehouse, and walked up it, her heart pounding. 

The tower room was bleak and unwelcoming; a few cold embers lay in the grate, and the only furniture was a battered looking table and a similarly-abused bench. The walls were plastered, and scratched with ugly-looking graffiti. The windlass for the drawbridge, hardly more than a wooden drum with a handle at each end, stood against the outer wall. 

All these things Jo saw as she stood in the doorway, but there were two more immediate foci for her attention. The Doctor had been right; the drawbridge mechanism was guarded by two men-at-arms. Despite the threat of siege, it was plain that they expected no immediate trouble. Their helmets lay on the table, their pikes against the wall. As she appeared in the doorway, they sprang to their feet, with expressions of tension that quickly turned to lecherous smiles. 

"Well, now," one of them said. "What have we here?" 

"I brought you these," Jo said, holding up her stolen fruit. "I thought you might be getting hungry." 

"That's a generous thought, isn't it?" The first guard came closer, took both fruit from her, and tossed one to his mate. "Generous and pretty, too. We ought to thank her properly." 

"Aye," the other one said. "Show her what a real good time's like." 

Jo backed away, moving slightly to her right, mentally estimating distances and reach. She wasn't in any real danger, she told herself, as long as she handled things properly. At least, probably not. 

As the two men-at-arms closed in on her, Jo ducked under their arms, tripped the closest one, and sprang onto the table, snatching the nearest helmet as she did so. The man she'd tripped was already stumbling to his feet, the other one bending over to help him. Jo jumped onto his back, and brought the helmet down on his head, with all the force she could muster. He collapsed with a groan, landing on top of his colleague and knocking him to the floor once more. 

Before the two guards could disentangle themselves, Jo was at the windlass. A lever at one end seemed to act as a brake; she kicked at it. With a groan the drum started to rotate, slowly at first, but rapidly accelerating as the heavy bridge toppled into the horizontal position. The guards were climbing to their feet again, running towards her, but Jo dodged round the table and ran down the staircase as fast as her legs could carry her. Halfway down there was a crash that seemed to shake the castle. As she burst out into the courtyard, a horse thundered past her; just for a second, she could make out the Doctor's profile, bent low over his mount. An instant later, Jamie followed. She risked a glance in the direction they were riding, but it was plain that she couldn't follow on foot. Beyond the drawbridge, half-a-dozen footsoldiers, who had jumped clear of the galloping steeds, were regrouping, blocking the way out for anybody on foot. Another charger was being led out from what must be the stables, doubtless for the purposes of a pursuit. 

Jo ran once more, this time towards the main gate, hoping to lose herself among the labourers unloading the carts. Strong hands caught at her; she managed to shake free, but was seized again in seconds. She had, undoubtedly, come to the limits of improvisation.


	4. Chapter 4

The rocks were digging into Jo's back again. She tried to shift her position, but with her arms tied to one iron ring and her legs to another, there wasn't a lot she could do about it. As the guards who'd left her there had reminded her, there was no requirement to make condemned prisoners comfortable. 

Jo supposed she would probably have been sentenced to death in any case. She was, after all, guilty of aiding the enemy in time of war, or as good as. The trial had been short, but long enough for her to tell the castle's seneschal exactly what she thought of him and his master. That, she mentally conceded, had put the tin lid on it. 

In the moonless, starless darkness, lying on her back, she could see precious little. Her clothes had been confiscated — it would have been a waste of good fabric to leave them on her — and her only covering was a ragged, threadbare shift, a grudging concession to modesty rather than anything to do with humane treatment. She wasn't cold, though, even this late at night. The air was warm, humid, and smelt of decay; the townspeople doubtless used the river as a rubbish dump and sewer, and each receding tide must scatter these rocks with a variety of unpleasant items. Now, under cover of dark, various sea creatures would doubtless be creeping, scurrying or slithering out of their hiding places to feast on the scraps — and, of course, on her. While tying her to the rocks, the guards had cheerfully been speculating whether she'd have her eyes eaten by sleeshes, or be picked to pieces by a group of korzi, or be dissolved alive by the shorecreepers' acidic slime. About half an hour ago something had given her leg an experimental nip, but the scream that had provoked seemed to have scared it off. 

Of course, she might not fall prey to any of the creatures. If so, she'd end up drowning, of course; she'd deliberately been staked out well below the high-water mark. She couldn't see the water, but she could hear it as it lapped closer. Somewhere overhead, she could hear a guard on the castle wall slowly pacing. 

A hand suddenly clamped over her mouth. 

"Jo!" The voice was a whisper. "Keep still and don't make a sound." 

Jo nodded. The hand was removed, and a moment later she felt something cut the ropes round her wrists. Then her ankles, too, were freed. 

"Stay still," the voice whispered. Whoever it belonged to leaned over her, laying something out beside her on the rocks and weighting it with stones. A dummy, she supposed, or just a length of fabric — something that would look enough like her in the darkness to stop the guards raising the alarm. 

"Now roll to your left." 

Jo did as she was told, wincing at the stiffness of her body, and found herself under a blanket alongside the owner of the voice. 

"Jamie?" she whispered, feeling the wool of his kilt against her fingers. 

"Aye, it's me. Now do what I do." 

Moving slowly and cautiously, the two crept in a wide circle, edging away from where Jo had been pinioned, heading in a vaguely downward direction, still keeping themselves covered by the blanket. Now and again Jamie would cautiously lift his head and peer out, then resume crawling in a slightly different direction. 

After what felt like ages of crawling, Jamie came to a halt. The sound of water lapping on the rocks was close here, probably within feet. 

"Right," he said. "We need to get the boat in the water." 

Jo felt her hand guided to something that felt like a large basket, and smelt of tar and leather. Exploration with her hands quickly confirmed the nature of the boat — it was a coracle, drawn up out of the water and weighted down with stones. It hardly seemed big enough for one person, let alone two. Together, they lifted the stones out, then edged forward with the coracle held between them. More from sound than sight, Jo guessed that they were nearing the water's edge. She felt cautiously ahead with her free hand, and after they'd crawled less than a yard felt the rock slope away steeply into the water. 

It was relatively easy to lower the coracle into the water. Then, with Jamie keeping one hand on the tiny vessel's rim to steady it, Jo climbed on board. The only concession to seating was a plank; the only equipment, a paddle and a clay jug with a broken handle. Once Jo was perched on the plank, Jamie passed her the blanket and scrambled aboard himself. The coracle rocked wildly, shipping water, and Jo would have tumbled out had she not clung onto the plank with all her might. 

"Get yon blanket round you," Jamie whispered, once they were crammed in side by side. "And you'll need to do something about the water coming in." 

He picked up the paddle, and began manoeuvring the coracle out into the estuary. Jo, having concealed her golden hair and pale rags beneath the blanket, picked up the jug and started to bale. The coracle didn't leak too badly, but it was dangerously low in the water, and Jo found herself employed more or less continuously. She had tried to speak once or twice, but Jamie had shushed her, trying to ensure that even the keenest of ears couldn't track their escape. 

An eternity of paddling and baling later, the coracle grounded. Jamie climbed out, again nearly tipping the boat over, and Jo followed suit, finding herself no more than knee-deep in water. Though it was still black night, Jo found she could make out a vague idea of what lay ahead. Here, rather than the rocky promontory they'd set out from, the ground was nearly flat, shading from water to mud to solid earth. Some way upstream, tents were silhouetted by the glow of campfires. 

They waded to the shore, dragging the coracle between them, and drew it up until it was beyond the reach of the tide. On the further shore, nobody seemed to have noticed the loss of their condemned prisoner; there were no more torches visible on the walls of the castle, and nothing could be heard. 

"Can we talk here?" Jo whispered. 

"I suppose so," Jamie replied, keeping his voice equally low. 

There were many questions in Jo's mind, but she started with the most important. 

"Where's the Doctor?" 

"In the camp," Jamie said, indicating the tents. "With Prince Kyrath and his men. They saw we'd escaped from the castle, and they gave us shelter." 

"Is he all right? Why didn't he come with you?" 

"He's fine. He wanted to come, but he's bigger than me. I doubt yon boat couldn't have taken his weight." 

Jo found herself giggling. "No. It would have gone to the bottom. We'd have had to swim for it." 

She waited for Jamie to answer, but he seemed lost for words. 

"You can swim, can't you?" 

Again, no reply. 

"You can't?" Her voice rose in astonishment. 

Jamie finally seemed to find his voice. "Sssh!" 

"OK." Jo lowered her voice again. "It's just— You paddled that boat all the way across the river and back to save me, and if anything had gone wrong you'd have drowned. That's terribly brave of you." 

"It wasnae so very much," Jamie said. "Not after you dressed up and got us out of the middle of a castle full of soldiers. And you only a slip of a girl." 

"For the hundredth time, I'm a trained agent. Haven't I told you I've convinced people I was a princess?" 

"Aye, you did." 

"Well, there you go. Compared to that, a kitchen wench is easy, isn't it?" 

"You still got caught." Jamie's tone was almost teasing. 

Jo couldn't stop herself smiling in the dark. "You got caught before I did, didn't you?" 

She moved closer to Jamie, slipped on the damp grass, and more or less fell into his arms. He caught hold of her, steadying her. 

"Are you—" he began. 

Jo, on an impulse that she couldn't fathom, leaned closer and kissed him. She felt him hesitate, then respond in kind. For a long moment they clung together, with no thoughts of anything but each other's presence. 

Then Jamie seemed to recollect where they were, and everything that still needed to be done. Gently, he disengaged himself from her. 

"Come on, lass," he said. "We need to get back to yon camp and find the Doctor." 

Jo, her mind a whirl, obediently took his hand. The two set off together in the direction of the camp.


	5. Chapter 5

As it turned out, Lord Rasmor wasn't the sort of leader who clung on to power until the bitter end. No sooner had the Prince's army closed around the walls of his city, than he'd surrendered rather than undergo the rigours of a long siege. The Prince, for his part, had restrained his army, and the townspeople had been spared the resulting fire and slaughter. Exactly what part the Doctor had played in all this, Jo wasn't sure, but she was convinced that without his presence at the negotiating table, events would have played out very differently. 

Annoyingly, until everything was sorted out, nobody from the Prince's camp was allowed in the city. That meant that for the past few days, Jo had been living in the camp. While in principle the idea of living close to the earth and sleeping under the stars sounded very romantic, it couldn't be denied that by now, her clothes itched and her hair felt horribly greasy. The last time she'd looked in a mirror, she'd been annoyed at how grubby she looked — and then annoyed again, for being annoyed. Personal appearance shouldn't matter, it was what you were like on the inside that counted. And she certainly wasn't fretting about what she must look like to Jamie. Definitely not. 

She shook herself from her woolgathering, just in time to put another branch on the campfire she was supposed to be tending. Jo had no illusions about her cooking abilities, but given a gas ring and a sink, she could at least manage _something_ edible. Her current efforts seemed more likely to end in food poisoning for anyone rash enough to partake of them. 

"Hello," Jamie said, sitting down opposite her. "What's cooking?" 

"They're supposed to be bones I'm boiling down," Jo said. "At least, that's what the cook told me. I think the idea is even I can't make too much of a mess of it." 

"Oh, aye." Jamie peered into the cast-iron pot that hung over the fire. "That'll make a decent broth." 

Jo grimaced. "It looks pretty yucky to me." 

"If you'd just marched from Derby to Carlisle on your own two feet, you'd not be so fussy." Jamie grinned at her expression, and added "in December" for good measure. 

"And you did that, didn't you?" Jo picked up another lump of wood and added it to the fire. "I suppose I'm doing this all wrong, too." 

Jamie shook his head. "That's quite a tidy fire you've got there." 

There was a momentary lull in the conversation, which was broken when they both tried to speak at once. 

"When I—" 

"About that night—" 

They stopped in confusion. Jamie gestured for Jo to continue. 

"When I kissed you," Jo said in a small voice. She could feel herself blushing, and hoped he'd take it for the heat of the fire. "I expect that isn't how you think girls should behave. I'm sorry if I did something wrong." 

"You're not the first lass from the future I've met," Jamie said. "And no two of them ever thought the same about what it was right for a lad and a lass to do together. There's not much you could have done that would've shocked me." 

"Except pulling your kilt off." 

"Oh, that. You weren't to know any better." 

"Well, I do now," Jo said firmly. 

"So... what would a girl from your part of the future do now? If she wanted to?" 

"I don't know. I mean, the normal thing for someone from my time is for the boy to take the girl out to dinner, and maybe watch a film. But we can't exactly do that here, can we?" 

"There's yon broth," Jamie said, with a grin. 

Jo gave the contents of the cauldron another tentative look, and recoiled. "No. Very definitely not. Let's leave things until we get back to the TARDIS." 

"That's what I came to say. The Doctor says they'll be opening the town gates today. We should be back at the TARDIS before sunset." 

Jo imagined herself relaxing in a brimming bathtub, beneath a mountain of scented bubbles. "I can't wait." 

*

By the time night had fallen over the city, the castle, the river and the lands beyond, the TARDIS was once more spinning through dimensions beyond the ken of Prince Kyrath or any of his subjects. Having bathed, changed — and perhaps dolled herself up a little more than was strictly necessary — Jo had joined Jamie and the Doctor for their evening meal. 

Halfway through the first course, the lights went out again. 

"Oh dear," the Doctor said. 

"Time Lords?" Jo asked. She glanced around nervously, though in the pitch darkness she could see nothing wherever she looked. 

"Probably just the lights again." Jo guessed he was on his feet, from the direction of his voice. "Just a moment." 

There was a flare of a match, and light returned to the room, yellow and flickering. Then the Doctor returned to the table, holding a half-full wine bottle, with a candle inserted in its neck. 

"I suppose I'd better go and see what the problem is," he said. "You two might as well carry on here." 

He vanished into the darkness. 

"D'ye think he can see in the dark?" Jamie asked. 

"Maybe he's just memorised where everything is..." Jo considered the areas of the TARDIS she was most familiar with, and shook her head. "No-one could memorise that." She looked across at Jamie, and smiled. "Well, here we are. A candlelight supper for two. I have to say, I didn't imagine it quite like this." 

Jamie grinned. "Oh, you've been imagining it, have you?" 

"I think it's better in real life," Jo said. 

*

"Now what?" Jamie asked. They'd eaten their fill, but there was still no sign of the Doctor, and the lights were still out. "Watch a film, didn't you say?" 

"We can't if the fuses are still blown." Jo nodded at the one and only candle. "And we've only got one light. You'd better walk me home." 

Hand in hand, with Jamie holding the candle, the two set out in the direction of Jo's room. 

"Jo," Jamie said. "Can I ask a question?" 

"Yes, of course." 

"You've travelled with the Doctor a fair bit. Do you think you'd ever get tired of it?" 

That hadn't been at all the sort of question Jo had expected; it took her a few moments to work out what her answer was. 

"I don't know," she said. "I hope I don't ever get bored. But I don't suppose I'll want to be an assistant all my life. Maybe one day I'll want to have an adventure all on my own." She shook her head. "And I'll probably make some really stupid mistake on my first day and that'll be that. What about you?" 

"As long as the Doctor needs me, I'll be there for him," Jamie said. 

Jo nodded. "Well, I don't think I'm going anywhere for a bit. So we'll have to put up with each other." She looked around, realising that they'd reached her bedroom — had, in fact, been standing outside it for some time. "I suppose, even if we can't watch a film, we can make our own entertainment." 

Jamie grinned. "I ken what that means." 

He drew her closer, into what rapidly became an embrace. 

_This can't possibly work out,_ Jo thought. _He's brave and strong and handsome but..._ She found herself having difficulty finding what to put after the _but_. It hardly seemed fair to criticise him on the grounds of intelligence or temperament, when her own were hardly beyond reproach. In the end, all she could think was _Whatever will the Doctor say when he finds out?_

On an impulse, she leaned towards the candle Jamie was still holding, and blew. Velvet darkness closed over them. 

"You'll never find your room in the dark," she whispered. "I think you should stay with me for the night." 

Perhaps it wouldn't work out. But that didn't mean they shouldn't try.


End file.
